AdMiration feature: Goldfish’s “Boss”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Goldfish’s “Boss” ad, which features SNL's Ben Marshall and their new tagline “Be More Like Goldfish.”

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to SNL's Ben Marshall at the end of a video call with his boss, who is saying he’ll keep Ben updated before saying “bye.” To which Ben horrifyingly replies, “Okay, love you, bye!” As the screen closes, the boss makes a confused face and Ben puts his hands in the air and quietly says, “What?” to himself in horror. 

He lets out a huge sigh and says, “Why did I say that?” as he reaches for his bag of Goldfish and pours some into his hand. As he begins eating, a voiceover comes in to say that “Goldfish have short memories. Be like Goldfish.” At this, Ben breaks into a massive smile, clearly forgetting what just transpired, and says “Crushed it.” 

The ad closes with him putting his legs up and snacking, as the Goldfish logo appears on screen with the new tagline “Be more like Goldfish.”

3 facts

• Goldfish’s ad performed very well with consumers, landing in the top 20% of ads for sales impact (Sales Impact: 83) and top 30% for potential to drive long term brand equity (Brand Impact: 72).

• The ad is only 15 seconds yet captures attention by being highly distinctive and making people laugh (dominant emotion for 21% people versus a norm of 8%). Humor (alongside emotional appeal) is a key like with 12% talking about it spontaneously.

• Even though the focus of the ad was on the cringey “I love you” exchange and “Goldfish” was only said at the end, the audience clearly knew who the ad was for with 91% saying “goldfish” when recalling the story — which was also the top word used to describe the story. This high recollection is due to the clever use of the brand name as an attribute people should have (a memory like a goldfish) — making the whole story cleverly revolve around the brand, by creating a perfect connection between the traits of a goldfish and their brand.

2 learnings

• Embedding cultural trends or feelings into your advertising can do great things for your brand when done right. In this case, Goldfish honed in on the “cringe” adjective that’s widely used today to describe something that is embarrassing or awkward, making the spot highly relatable (Relevance: 3.8 vs a norm of 3.6). As soon as Ben says, “I love you” to his boss, the cringe takes over and reminds audiences of cringeworthy interactions they may have had in the past — making the spot not only painfully funny but relatable with viewers saying things like “I thought it was relatable and funny. We have all said stupid things like that to the wrong person."

• It’s okay to bring something fresh to your tagline. Known for years as the brand with the “The snack that smiles back” tagline, Goldfish brings a fresh take on their tagline with “Be more like Goldfish.” Since a tagline is of course a brand asset if established over time, when a choice is made to change it, the ad has to compensate in other ways, using other brand assets and ensuring the story naturally gives a role to the brand. 

1 reflection

When you are developing new creative platforms or early executional ideas, do you put enough emphasis on whether the platform is something you can play with, use successfully in different channels or contexts and play with stories to resonate with different demographics? This is a great example of an idea that has legs for fresh yet coherent stories and expressions.

Goldfish brings something new to the table with their latest campaign and “Be more like Goldfish” tagline. 

Hilariously creating a connection between goldfish’s short memory spans, the campaign features two spots by Mischief @ No Fixed Address that star Saturday Night Live’s Ben Marshall.

On starring in the ads, Ben Marshall shares, “As someone with bright orange hair and a short attention span, I felt uniquely qualified to ‘Be Like Goldfish,’ which is all about smiling through everyday missteps and staying positive. Also, if there were a competition to find the human who most resembles a Goldfish, I’d easily rank top 100 in the continental United States.”

The campaign also speaks to the recent “snack recession,” brands are experiencing, with inflation-weary consumers cutting down on snacking purchases like chips, sweets and crackers, causing many brands to start experimenting with a number of tactics from new marketing to price cuts to healthier skus and more. 

The Pepperidge Farm brand’s new campaign is planning a large media buy for the new Goldfish campaign, which will be featured on cable TV, Hulu, Peacock, and YouTube, as well as Pinterest, Meta and TikTok.

Goldfish did a great job at bringing something fresh and relatable to the table with this spot from their new “Be more like Goldfish” campaign. The ad performed well with consumers, landing in the top 20% of ads for sales impact (Sales Impact: 83) and top 30% for potential to drive long term brand equity (Brand Impact: 72).

While the overall brand impact score for the ad was well above the norm, there was some distinction in men vs. women, with scores landing slightly higher among men (Brand Impact: 87) compared to women (Brand Impact: 51).

This difference in brand impact between men vs. women comes from a few key areas: 

• Men have a higher enjoyment of the ad (Enjoyment: 4.1 vs. 3.9 for women)

• Men see it as more relevant (Relevance: 4.0 vs. 3.6 for women)

• Men see the ad as differentiating the Goldfish brand more (Brand Distinctiveness: 4.0 vs. 3.5 for women)

• Men feel more positive toward the Goldfish brand (Brand Appeal: 4.1 vs. 3.8 for women)

That said, when it comes to brand recall, women are the ones who were more likely to remember the brand being advertised (Brand Recall: 78% women vs. 68% men) — a solid 10 points higher!

And, while the peak of emotional engagement in the story involves Ben saying “I love you” to his boss and his reaction to that, having a memory like a goldfish is still a key focus of how people remember the story with 91% replaying “goldfish” when playing back the story within the ad — making the top word used to describe the story.

By creating a connection between their cheesy snack and the short memory of actual goldfish, the ad was also seen as highly distinct and relatable (especially once the “I love you” was said). 

This resulted in an overall distinctiveness score of 4.0 (vs. 3.8 norm) and a relevance score of 3.8 (vs. 3.6 norm), with viewers saying things like "I like how the ad showed a relatable experience in a humorous way to help you feel better about those kinds of mistakes" and "It was so relatable and so hilarious. Just very simple and very cute. Just like goldfish crackers."

It’s clear the audience was entertained and could easily relate to this spot, making it no surprise that the Laughter reaction far surpassed the norm (21% vs. 8% norm). 

The ad begins with a mix of Like and Love as the scene is established, but quickly switches to Laughter as soon as Ben says “I love you” and freaks out afterward — peaking when he says “What?!” to himself. It’s a mix of Like, Love and Laughter through the rest of the short ad, with Love rising as the dominant emotion when Ben eats a goldfish cracker.

Here’s what some people had to say about the ad:

• "I like the correlation between the product name Goldfish, with the actual characteristic of the animal it is based on, goldfish, specifically their short memory, to make it humorous to the audience."

• "It was short and to the point. Can relate to sitting at home office on a video call."

• "It was an interesting idea to connect eating goldfish with memory."

• "The guy's true enjoyment of his crackers. I liked how he ended the ad with a simple attitude of ,"oh well, so what?" and kept right on enjoying his delight."

• "I liked that he forgot his mishap with a handful of crackers."

• "That goldfish is for everyone, not just for kids' snack times. The situation is very relatable."

What a cringe-worthy but hilarious spot from Goldfish! We loved their fresh take on their tagline and horrifyingly relatable humor. What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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